long but not lost?

photo: hellogiggles

I'm so hesitant to post this, and I'm not sure why. I've had it ready to go for days, but haven't been able to push the publish button... for no good reason really. Well, part of the point of blogging is to put yourself out there and face the consequences, so here goes... a little piece of my heart.

It's a funny thing when you lose a friend.

A few years ago, I lost a friend - not just a friend, but a close friend... a best friend. Don't get the wrong idea, he didn't pass away - it was nothing that final or, honestly, that easy. I lost him to a series of unfortunate events that led him to no longer be my friend. I lost him to his inability to tell me the truth, and my inability to get over my fear of confrontation and just ask to have my needs met. I lost him to his running away from a problem, and my own fury at being lied to and avoided. A series of very unfortunate events that culminated in totally cutting ties with one another.

It cut me to the core.

He is the first person that I've ever lost in this way, not the only one, but definitely the loss I felt the hardest and mourned the longest. I didn't write for years, literally years, because he was the one that I used to bounce my writing off of. He was the one that gave me honest feedback. If something I'd been working on was terrible, truly horrible, he'd say, "Not so good, Jazz. Try again." or "You can do better than that." And when I succeeded with something, he'd nod his head and give me a simple, "Nice." No big show about about it, because that's not how he rolled, but I knew it when he thought my work was good, and I felt good about it. Losing him may have been the final straw of why I quit acting for real. He was my honest opinion. We'd done so much theatre together, so much GREAT theatre, that not having him to talk it out with, or work on audition material with, or cry outside of rehearsal when I just couldn't cram another ridiculous lyric in my brain with made the work a little less sweet.

He was a person that I knew better than I knew myself, but also would always be a total mystery to me. He's a gay republican... How does that even happen?! Just kidding... kind of. ;) It's one of the things about him that never made sense to me, but added to his overall You just never know that he had, and likely still has, going on.

I've thought about him so much, almost daily, since our "split", and I still feel it as raw as I did on the day I first realized that he wasn't coming back. I miss him deeply, but I've also come to terms with the fact that we really may never speak again. It's a hard thing to cope with, but it was ultimately something that I realized may be forever, especially when both parties do unforgivable things to one another. I'm not proud of what I did to drive the final stake between us, but I don't know that I would take it back either. At some level, I think he needed it to happen in order to realize that you can't just walk out on someone that trusted you. Or, you know, maybe not. Maybe my reactive behavior taught him nothing positive. I may never know either way.

And then again, maybe I will...

A few days ago, as B and I were going through boxes from our move PRIOR to this one, boxes that I hadn't opened in over a year, I found a bunch of his stuff. Sweet, important stuff, like kindergarten report cards and photos of his friends, that I'd been holding on to in case he came back. Well, he never came back, and I'm not a person that could throw out such obviously personal things, even those belonging to a person that I was so furious with. Seeing how torn I was about them, B asked me if he could facebook message the owner and ask if he wanted these precious items. I nodded, and didn't say much. B did, and with a speedy reply, my old friend said yes, and offered to pay shipping (which is totally unnecessary). He also said that he thought of us often and asked if it would be okay to write an email to catch up.

I was floored. I didn't expect to feel such a swift kick in the gut when B told me about the reply. I didn't expect to feel relief flooding through me. But I did. I felt joy... plain and simple. My friend, that I had wished the best for and missed desperately, wanted to write to me.

I only want to talk to him. I want to know where he's been and what he's been doing. I want to know what his hopes and dreams are, if they're still the same, and I want him to know mine. I want him to know that life has been kind to me in some ways, and very difficult in others. Most of all, I want him to know that I've missed him so terribly. I want him to know that every time I hear "Hey Jealousy", I think of us, driving around town, laughing so hard our faces hurt, and him eating JBCB's at every Wendy's we passed.  Every time I hear or read the words "praise band", I think of his made-up lyrics, "Her sister was in the praise band. It's funny, cause she's a sinner." and I smile hard before the bittersweetness sobers me up.

We will probably never be like we were. We will probably take years to recover what we lost, and I don't know if he's even interested in that. But just knowing that he's out there - that he's thought of me and missed me... well, it's almost enough to make the sadness worthwhile.

Almost.

Have any of you ever lost a friend like this? Have you reconciled and reunited? Should I let go of my expectations - since it's expectations that got us here in the first place - and just hope?

I'll take the advice where I can get it... this is a tough one for me.